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14 July 2011 / Michael L Nash
Issue: 7474 / Categories: Features , Public , Immigration & asylum
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Crown prosecution

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Michael L Nash revists the Sultan case to investigate issues of sovereignty & immunity

The recent case of R (Sultan of Pahang) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 616, [2011] All ER (D) 243 (May) raised a number of important issues, legal, political and constitutional. The original case had been brought by the Sultan claiming that, as a head of state, he was entitled to immunity from immigration controls by reason of s 20(1) and possibly s 5 of the State Immunity Act 1978 (the 1978 Act).

Sovereignty

This immediately brought into focus the question of sovereignty, who is a sovereign, and what sovereignty means. This is an issue which has been the subject of serious discussion over a very long period. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which brought the Thirty Years’ War to a close, is often considered as a crucial point in the evolution of the concept of sovereignty. It was then that the idea of not interfering in another state’s affairs really gained

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